


better angels

by evewithanapple



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M, Shakespeare Pastiche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 13:39:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1081660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By Horatio's reckoning, there never was such melancholy as could be enclosed in one of Hamlet's sighs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	better angels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [okayokayigive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayokayigive/gifts).



Hamlet flips the knife. Spins it. Balances the point on his fingertip for a split second before it teeters over and falls to the table. The tablecloth muffles the impact, and so it falls without so much as a clatter. Like a footfall in snow.

Horatio watches.

"My lord is restless."

Hamlet flips the knife over again. "I am much troubled in mind."

"Will you not unburden yourself to me, that your mind may yet be eased?"

The knife is tilted again, back and forth. Hamlet lets it fall, again, to the table and looks moodily at Horatio. "The thoughts that so inflame my brain shall not be calmed by the sharing thereof, Horatio. Nor shall your mind be settled by the allotment."

"My mind is peaceful," Horatio says, "yet I perceive that yours is not. Let burden by shared, sweet prince, and your soul be soothed by the allocation."

Hamlet sighs. It not an unfamiliar sound, but one so woeful as to pierce the heart and make Heaven weep at the sorrow contained therein. By Horatio's reckoning, there never was such melancholy as could be enclosed in one of Hamlet's sighs.

"A dread duty is put onto me, Horatio," Hamlet says, "and I would not bear this burden; but God, my father, and my soul demand that I shall. Methinks I should rather see my own body moulder in the grave than carry out this charge. It is this sorrow that clouds my brains. I would rather see this knife placed in my breast-“ he raises the dagger “-than see it by my hand thrust to another’s.”

Horatio is stunned. “Dost thy father lay this charge on you, my lord? To murder?”

“Aye!” Hamlet lets out a bitter bark of laughter. “So he does; and such a murder that I may be barred from St. Peter’s gates were I to carry out his command. But he is my father, Horatio, and so I must. What a world of cares do fathers leave upon the shoulders of their sons when they have left this earthly plane behind and need ponder on their worldly cares no more!”

Horatio leans back in his chair, staring at the cross-hatched ceiling above them. “Hast this charge been given to you after his death?”

“It has.” Hamlet’s mouth twists. “And so I must fulfill it, else his spirit be doomed to roam the earth forevermore.” He spins the knife; it whirls, then comes to rest with the blade pointing directly to Hamlet’s chest. He laughs again, bilious and bitter. “You see, Horatio! All the signs of nature tell me that I must bury this sword in my own bosom; and yet I would not. My father tells me to bury the sword in the bosom of his enemy; but I cannot. How fain would I obey the charge of all natural instructions and end my tormented days!” He lifts the knife and presses it to his doublet.

“My lord!” Horatio leaps from his seat, sending it crashing to the floor, and seized Hamlet’s wrist in his grip. It is a small wrist, but it bears much strength. Hamlet wrenches against his restraint for a moment, then begins to laugh again- a hollow, wild wail that sends a chill down Horatio’s spine and makes him think that the ghost who set Hamlet on this damned path may yet linger in Elsinore.

“My lord,” he says softly, “you may do yourself harm or no; but if it is my permission you seek, I must leave you disappointed. I will not see you die.”

Hamlet’s spasms of laughter die slowly, turning to long breaths, and he leans his forehead against Horatio’s. “In truth, my friend, I would not die; and yet, I would not live. ‘Tis a puzzle, is it not?”

“It is, my lord.” With his free hand, Horatio carefully plucks the dagger from Hamlet’s grasp; Hamlet’s fingers are limp as he does so. “I cannot say why God, your father, and your conscience torment you so. You have ever been an obedient subject to their wills.”

“Ah!” Hamlet raises his head, grasping Horatio by the shoulders and giving him a searching look. “But if God’s edict and my father’s differ, Horatio? What course is left to me then but to see myself from this life with my own hand, my own acts? My mortal lord and the lord of my soul are at odds with each other’s commands. Yet was’t my father not a man of God? How soon he forgets the unearthly lessons that governed his earthly life.”

“Perhaps this command is not your father’s at all,” says Horatio. “Perhaps some trick of the devil hast instructed you thus to bring torment to your days and nights.”

“Ah, Horatio!” Horatio feels wetness on his face and realizes they are Hamlet’s tears. “I cannot think but that this vision was true, and that my father’s ghost spoke to me on the parapets of Elsinore. What else may I believe- that the state of our fair land is just? But surely not; I scented something deep and damned before my father came to me. You must see that the court under my uncle’s rule is a sty of fust and offal. Knavery and harlotry are the by-words of Claudius’s rule. Methinks I may never be satisfied, in such a state as this.”

Horatio brushes aside the tears and presses a gentle kiss to the skin left damp by their touch. “If thou wilt be made so miserable by the state of our country, might we not flee? We shall hire a pack-horse and leave the palace by first light, and not stop til we have arrived in a country less infested with such that make my lord Hamlet weep.”

“O, Horatio!” Hamlet grips his forearms tightly. “How fain would I agree and flee this palace of death and dishonesty! But I cannot be moved to move when my task is yet undone. What will, will out; I cannot change it by the might of my will, no matter how dearly it may be wished. I am guided by a higher power than my own wits, now. I cannot but stay the course."

Horatio feels he may be moved to weep himself. There is a darkness that spreads its black wings over Hamlet, and he cannot see a way to disperse it. "What will you do, my lord?"

"What I must do, Horatio." Hamlet's grip still has not slackened. Horatio wishes that it may stay that way. "Whatever God, fate, and my conscience will have of me. I am not my own man any longer. When I have run this course, I may see myself to myself again."

"I wish to see the course seen through as soon as may be done," Horatio says. He feels his heart sink with premonition, but cannot name the reason why.

"As do I," says Hamlet. The import of his words hang heavy in the air between them, dark and thick as blood.


End file.
